


Each Unhappy Family

by The_Lionheart



Series: Family Matters [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Harm to Children, He sprays coffee smell in Phil's room because he knows Phil loves coffee and hates hospital smells, Hey you know who has a lot in common? Steve and Boda, Imprisonment, MOMFEELS, MOMFIGHT, Medically-induced coma, Mental Breakdown, Nick's relationship with Phil is basically "I LOVE YOU MOTHERFUCKER", Nick's relationship with all his Agents is actually "I LOVE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS", Nightmares, Now the question is how long is it gonna take to get home, Past Brainwashing, Past Relationship(s), Past Torture, Pre-Canon, Pre-GotG, Recovery, So glad this movie came out so I could have someone other than the Avengers rescue them, Spoilers, Steve and Boda should hang out, WHAT'S THAT A TWIST, You didn't think I'd let it be THAT sad did you?, all myths are true, boooo, obviously i started this before phase two started so it's gonna be... different a lot, sometimes bad things happen to good people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:01:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lionheart/pseuds/The_Lionheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes . . . and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can't forgive yourself for.”<br/>― Melina Marchetta,<i> On the Jellicoe Road </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Angrboda in the Dark

When they take her, she is screaming pure fury. She kills six of them with her bare hands before they manage to subdue her, and when she sees them take her children she kills another two before she is rendered unconscious.

When Angrboda opens her eyes, her daughter and sons are crying into her side, and she pulls them close to her and promises death to anyone who might come near them. No one does. The family is locked in a small, dimly lit cell carved into rock. It seems almost like it could be a place on Midgard, except for the traces of advancement she recognizes from her youth in other realms.

“Don't worry, loves,” she whispers to her babies, after checking them repeatedly for any signs of injury greater than bruises on them. “Daddy is going to find us, and he will take us home.”

“When?” Fenris asks, and Boda sighs, but it's her daughter who answers.

“Daddy won't find us until he's old,” she whispers miserably. “And he won't believe us, Mama. He's gonna think we're ghosts.”

“No, no, baby, hush,” Angrboda soothes, rubbing Hela's back. “It's going to be okay, baby. You'll see.”

They sleep and wake up and go to sleep again. The second time they wake- Angrboda isn't sure, but it feels like the third day here- the children start complaining and asking if there's going to be food here. It's another couple of days before someone- or something- shuffles in and drops a bowl of some thin, foul-looking sort of gruel into the cell. It takes most of the day before the kids are desperate enough to try it, although Angrboda isn't sure she wants to risk potential food-poisoning from such a terrible-looking meal.

“Daddy and I will make you your favorite honey bread when we get home, darlings,” she promises, but in her heart she's starting to suspect that these alien marauders have murdered her husband with the rest of their village. By the time a week has passed, she's sure of it. By the time two weeks have passed, their keepers have returned a total of six times to feed them, and her children are starting to smell. She keeps that knowledge to herself.

By the time three weeks have passed, Jormundgandr has retreated into near silence and Fenris has thrown two screaming tantrums- one because he wants his father and grandmother, one because he just wants out. Hela has nightmares every time she sleeps.

Angrboda has started to contemplate how she will ever get her children out of this place, when several guards come to their cell and instead of food, they throw _Loki_ to the floor before locking the cell behind him.

“...Loki?” Boda asks, and he stares at them like he does not know them. Hela runs at her father and clutches at his knees and sobs into his leg, and he is frozen in terror. There are no lines on his face, but he looks exhausted and battered. There are yellowing bruises under his eyes and on his face and throat, and the dried brown of old blood. He is wearing clothing and armor she's never seen before, but she knows it is of Asgard, and it looks like it has seen battle. There are bloodstains on the armor and the leather and at his hairline; there are dents in the metal itself.

“Loki, what happened?” Angrboda asks, just to draw him back. He looks utterly lost, staring at the children with an expression of abject horror.

“You cannot trick me,” Loki whimpers, his words half-strangled as he starts breathing fast, shallow breaths. “You cannot trick me with, with, with visions of my family, you cannot, this is futile, I will not be so easily fooled by this-”

“Daddy,” Fenris pleads, interrupting his father's mad rambling as he reaches for Loki's sleeve. “Where were you? We were scared.”

“Stop,” Loki breathes out, his body shuddering violently as he retreats as far back as he can go, curling in on himself, his gaze unfocused. “Stop. You can't- no, no. Stop, right now, stop.”

“Children,” Angrboda commands. Fenris looks up at her, and his face is too thin and worried. Jormundgandr pulls his brother back, and she gently pulls Hela away and leads her to safety, away from Loki.

“Husband,” Boda whispers, touching him lightly on the arm. “Loki, what has happened to you?”

Loki crumbles, and she wraps her arms around him, holding him together, the way she always does when he can't do it for himself. She holds him and when his hysterics start to terrify her she sings to him, trying to remind him who he is and who he's with.

She hears him beg her not to let the guards touch her, that their touch carries pain with it. She feels her jaw clench tightly with the realization that he knows this from _experience_.

“I won't, love,” she promises, running her fingers through his hair and over the exposed flesh of his face and throat and hands, cataloging every injury she finds, no matter how small. Eventually he calms down, and when he looks up at her, at the children, he at last seems to think they're real, that they're here with him.

There is something awful about the way he clings to them, when she motions for the kids to come back, and he doesn't speak again, not until the guards come back to take him away.

They do not have to drag him out- he stands up and walks, his head held high, and she doesn't like the way he avoids looking at them once he's left the cell. He's only been gone a short while- less than an hour, for certain- when the guards come back without him and open the door. By the time Angrboda realizes that they're going to come inside she's on her feet. She fights viciously, but one guard manages to duck past her and snatches Fenris up. It chitters at her, holding what is clearly a weapon against his head.

Angrboda breathes slowly out and holds her hands up, her heart racing.

“Put him down, you bastard-” she snarls, and the guards point their weapons at Jori and Hela.

“It's okay, Mama,” Fenris whimpers, and she hates this place and these people. “They're gonna take me to Daddy, right?”

“Right,” she says, and she moves forward but one of the others fires something at her- some kind of dart. The room swims and she stumbles forward, and darkness becomes blackness.

When Angrboda wakes up, Fenris and Loki are still gone. Her stomach roils, and she is ready to tear the limbs from the next group of guards, but they have her husband and son with them, and something is terribly wrong.

She tears Fenris away from Loki, her boy is limp and unresponsive for several seconds before he shivers and bends himself around her and cries into her chest, like when he was still very small. Angrboda is torn between fury and the desire to cry with her baby.

“How long have you been prisoner here?” Loki asks slowly, his voice ragged. She looks up at him, and wonders why he doesn't think it meshes with the length of their absence.

“Days are hard to measure without sun or stars, but I would put it at...” She thinks, considering her previous calculations. “Nearly three weeks of this captivity, Loki. Why has it taken so long for you to find us?”

The look in his eyes, before he covers them with his fingers, makes her blood run cold.

He stays with them for the night, and when Hela crawls into his lap and tells him that she loves him he makes a confused smile at her, as if he isn't completely sure what she means. When he speaks to Angrboda, he keeps his eyes averted, and he flinches back from her every time she moves.

In the morning the guards escort him away, and leave food in his place.

It is what she reckons to be night when he is dragged back to the cell- his legs trailing heavy under him, his armor gone. His head hangs down and his hair is filthy, and his eyes are glazed over. She has seen this thinness in his face before, back when the boys were very tiny and they were starving, and his lips are cracked and bloody. As soon as she can Hela tears away to be with him, and he weeps silently into her hair and cannot be coaxed into releasing her.

“Loki,” Boda whispers, stroking his hair back from his forehead to feel his temperature. “Loki, you're so thin, and you're freezing. How have you lost so much weight since this morning?”

Loki laughs at that, a broken and desperate sound, and Hela clings to her father as if afraid he'll leave again.

They let him spend a night with her and the children before they take him again, crying and protesting as they carry him bodily away. A day and a night pass, and Fenris is speaking again, but faintly.

“They're hurting Daddy,” he says, over and over again, as Jori hugs him close and rubs his back. “They hurt Daddy and I _saw_. And they said Daddy thinks we aren't real, and then they hurt me. And now they're hurting him again.”

Angrboda swallows dryly and looks at Hela, but her daughter says nothing, just holds Fenris's hand.

“Remember Uncle For?” she asks, and Fenris and Jori nod. “He's gonna come help us. He's gonna rescue Daddy and us and take us home to Grandma-Baba and to a big tower with lights on it.”

“Okay,” Fenris says softly, and she nods.

“Daddy and a troll and some warriors and Uncle For are going to save us,” she whispers.

“You should get some sleep, baby,” Boda suggests, and Hela and the boys all want to be in her lap.

It is maybe four days later, in total, before Loki is returned to them. He is limping and his shirt is open, exposing a purpling throat and deep, untreated gashes across his chest. He stares at them with a blankness that scares her almost as much as the visible abuse on his bone-thin body. Hela can't stand to look at him, and Fenris just sort of collapses against Jori.

“Loki, sweetheart, are you alright?” she asks, coming closer, but slowly so as not to startle him.

“Oh, yes,” Loki says dreamily, his voice ragged. “I've been very good, I promise. You're not still angry, are you?” he asks suddenly, eyes widening as he sits up a little.

“Angry? I'm not angry, Loki,” she says soothingly, gesturing at the children to be quiet for now. “Can you get up? Are you able to walk?”

“You were so angry,” Loki sighs, and he leans his head back against the bars of the cell. “Every day in Asgard, because of what I did.”

“You didn't do anything, Loki,” she whispers, taking his face in her hands, but he doesn't see her or feel her for several moments before noticing her with a startled gasp. It's all she can do not to pick him up right there, but she's terribly worried that he'll react badly or lash out and hurt himself if she does. “You should try to get some sleep, if you can.”

“I know this isn't real,” Loki mumbles, gazing up at her, and her mouth tightens. “I burned down your house. Our house. Father caught me in a stream. Baba wanted... Baba wanted to mourn you together.” He inhales shakily, his breath rattling in his chest.

“We're not dead,” Angrboda says carefully, and Loki grins up at her, showing bloody teeth.

“You all died. Years ago. Only I couldn't pretend the kids were still around. It was just you and me for a while there.” Loki's smile fades, and he blinks. “You're not... you're not still angry, are you?”

“I'm not angry,” Angrboda says, before she realizes that this is an utter lie. “I'm not angry at _you_. I actually am angry. Loki, do you mean to say that... that you've believed us dead the weeks while we were here without you?”

“It wasn't weeks,” Loki admits, and he closes his eyes and goes limp. “You've all been dead for years.”

“No,” she breathes out, backing away as she realizes what horror has transpired outside this cell. Her mother and grandmother and aunt have mourned her and her children, and if his armor is anything to go by, Loki didn't stay with her family, but went back to Asgard, to the people who drove him out in the first place. She can't imagine what her family has gone through. “That can't be true.”

“It's alright,” he says coaxingly, opening his bloodshot eyes to look up at her. “I've been so good. You'll see. The bulk of the work is done. They just need to prepare their troops and give me what I need to open the door. Then they'll let us be together again. I've been so good for you, Boda.”

To her mounting horror, she notices that Loki is starting to pull himself up, and that there are guards coming back this way.

“Don't go back to them,” she pleads, and he looks at her, puzzled and frail. “Something's wrong, Loki. Please, just-”

“I can do it,” Loki tells her, and he smiles.

He is only gone for a few hours when there is a shuddering vibration in the very floors and walls of the cell, and the lights, dim to begin with, disappear completely.

_  
_


	2. Clint in the Wider World

He is twelve years old and he can't find his older brother anywhere. He turns a corner and he's in a circus tent, a bow in his hands, and he should be proud, he should be happy, but he's not. The crowd is strange, all washed-out blacks and grays and whites, but here and there-

_blood and blood and blood and we own you now_

-splashes and slashes and spatters of red. It's distracting, especially from the family up front. There's a mom and a dad and three kids, and there's red coming out their ears and noses and their eyes are dark holes.

The dad is smiling, through, and he's the only one who is. Every time he speaks or laughs, black and red goop comes out, and it turns Clint's stomach but he has a hard time looking away.

The ringmaster smiles at him-

_too many teeth oh god_

-and leans in close to whisper.

“Do you see what happens to anyone who resists?” the ringmaster asks, gesturing towards the bloody family. The dad smiles and waves, like he doesn't know he and his kids are dead. “This one thought he could resist. That he could protect them from us. Do you see how wrong he was?”

“No,” Clint whispers, because he knows what's going to happen next. The colors all go strange and bright and acidic, and two targets are wheeled out, each large enough to have a person strapped across the front. The target on the left has a struggling woman in black, her poppy-red hair tossing violently. The target on the right has a man in a suit, and he's dead, too, just like the family in the front row, dark blood all over his front, a single line of red from his mouth.

“Do as you're told,” the ringmaster says, and hands him two arrows.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“And then what happens?” the therapist asks. He's the fourth Clint's seen in as many weeks, and Clint already knows there will be a fifth.

“I don't want to talk about it,” Clint says flatly, looking down. He doesn't have the dream every night, but he has it often. He knows, when he is awake, that the crowds who come to see him in his dreams are the victims of the attack on the Helicarrier.

He knows who the dead man on the target is.

He tells Natasha every time.

“Why don't you want to talk about it?” the therapist presses. Clint hasn't bothered to learn his name, and he just sort of folds into himself and doesn't talk, biting his tongue and refusing to answer the questions that fire his way. The rest of the hour passes and then Clint is on his feet and out the door, despite the therapist's insistence that he come back, that he sit down, that he speak.

He knows he's a huge disappointment, and wonders if there will be a fifth therapist after all. Maybe SHIELD will just cut him loose and let him wander.

Or maybe not. Director Fury comes and takes a seat next to him. Clint really should wonder how Director Fury even made it into Clint's quarters, considering the door had been locked, but he knows Director Fury well enough by now to just assume that the man will just go where he wants to.

“So it appears Dr. Anderson is getting reassigned,” Fury says calmly, and Clint just sits there. Fury offers Clint a water bottle, and Clint takes it. “What am I doing wrong, Agent Barton?”

“Nothing, sir,” Clint says, and Fury sighs.

“Agent Barton- Clint. I have something I need to tell you,” he says, and Clint's stomach clenches and he stands up, crossing the room in a few strides.

“It's that I killed them,” Clint barks, running his hands over his face. “I killed them. It doesn't matter the ones I didn't do myself, even though I did plenty. It's that I took an army into the 'carrier and pointed it at the agents who were the least able to defend themselves. It's mine, okay? All of them, even Phil-”

“Clint,” Fury says sharply, standing. “Stop right there, Agent. You're not here out of pity and you're not here out of obligation- you're here because we still want you around. Phil Coulson's a lot of things, but before anything else, he's my best friend, and he would not want to hear you take what happened to him on yourself-”

“And why are you the last person who can't accept that he's _gone_?” Clint demands, turning to face him. “Everyone else has done it, everyone else knows. You're still talking about him like he's still here, Nick, and you're the one who-” Clint stops, because he can see the look on Fury's face.

“You need to sit down, Agent Barton,” Fury says softly.

“Why,” Clint says, and he can feel his world shrinking, he can see the colors changing.

“Sit your ass down,” Fury commands, and Clint doesn't. He can't. Fury comes over and puts his hands on Clint's shoulders, grounding him in place.

“I saw Phil die,” Fury says gently. “But the med team came anyway. And the team didn't tell me until after Thor took Loki home.”

“They didn't tell you,” Clint repeats dully.

“They told me not to get my hopes up,” Fury says, his hands squeezing Clint's shoulders. “But I did anyway, and I thought it would be soon. I figured I'd have a day or two to wait, and then I'd be able to bring you and Romanov in to see him. And weeks passed, and I realized he might never wake up.”

“But he's alive,” Clint says, too afraid to ask it, and Fury hesitates a little, but he nods all the same.

“It doesn't change what I did,” Clint whispers.

“It changes what you think you did,” Fury tells him, sighing. “Agent Hill's telling Agent Romanov right now. We're going to take you both to see him now.”

“Did Hill lose a bet or something?” Clint asks, and Fury smirks, just a little.

“You could say that. Are you ready?”

Clint stops and looks at him- if it's a joke, it's a fucking cruel one, but he thinks Fury is serious. He nods, once.

“Do you have a bag packed?” Fury asks, and Clint raises an eyebrow at him. “Look, I know you're going to park yourself next to that hospital bed until you crust over, at which time Natasha's going to drag you out by the ankles and hose you down out back until you stop stinking up the joint. I just want to make sure you have dry clothes for after that happens.”

“I'll go get it,” Clint says, because he does have a bag packed and he thinks Fury's right.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There's no crying, yet. Clint's still sort of shocked by the whiteness of the room and the weird hospital smells and the uncomfortable urge to double- and triple-check that Phil's still warm and breathing.

“Get me some food,” Natasha says softly, and Clint looks over at her. She makes a face at him and throws an empty styrofoam cup at him, which he catches. “You don't have to do it if you have some other reason to get out of this room for a while, but you might as well.”

“What if he wakes up while I'm out?” Clint asks, and Natasha frowns at him.

“He'll want some food, too,” she says, and Clint knows that's bullshit, just like he knows it's bullshit to think Phil might even wake up at all, ever.

Fury's been by three times- once alone, to tell them that Tony Stark and Pepper Potts were probably going to find out about Phil, and then again later that day with Tony and Pepper in tow. The last time was just to visit Phil and spritz the air with some kind of coffee-scented air freshener while glowering at Clint and Natasha. He made some cutting remarks about eating and bathing before he left.

Clint thinks sometimes about Fury sitting here, alone with Phil during his free time, and then promptly tries not to think about it. At least Natasha's here now.

“Go,” Natasha says, pulling out a book. “I'll read to him, and if he wakes up he'll be lulled back to sleep by my dulcet tones.”

Clint pulls a face but he gets up, because she must really be hungry if she's asking.

He must walk to the elevator and down to the cafeteria, but he doesn't remember anything between leaving Phil's room and wordlessly pointing out a random plate of hospital food so the lady can put it on a tray for him. He tells himself that it's because he's exhausted and grieving, and not because he's seconds away from turning again, and killing everyone.

He drops the food off on the table next to Phil's bed, but he frowns and paws at his bag until he finds his cellphone. It's nothing special, and everyone he uses it to keep in touch with is in the room.

But there's a name on his contact list that doesn't get nearly enough mileage, and he tells Natasha he's going to make a call. She raises her eyebrows at him and eats a bland meatball.

There's a crackling sound when he dials the number for the fortune teller who used to travel with the circus, although he's sure he's got good coverage here. It picks up after two rings.

“Hey,” Clint says quickly. “It's me, Clint Barton?”

“I know, Clint,” the old fortune teller says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “I never forget any of my kids, dear. How can I help you?”

“I'm in New York,” Clint says, then, all in a rush, “I _was_ in New York. That was me.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” she breathes out. “I thought I saw you on the television. You did very well, but you don't sound like it, do you?”

“It was-” Clint crouches down, pressing his back against the side of the building. “There was a lot you didn't see on TV, okay? And part of it was that the guy who started the whole thing, he comes in and... god, I don't know, it was like getting brainwashed or something. He put this knife thing against my chest and turned me into this, this-”

“Darling,” she soothes. “Darling, it's alright. You're yourself again, Clint.”

“I don't know, what if I'm not?” Clint asks miserably. “What if I'm just... what if this is part of some plan, where Loki's just going to let me think I'm normal and then as soon as I get complacent he turns me back into that thing?”

It's quiet on the line for several seconds, enough that Clint glances at the phone to make sure the call hasn't dropped.

“Baba?” he asks. “You still... you still there?”

“Yes, sweetheart, I'm still here,” Baba Yaga tells him, her voice crackling over the distance. “But I rather think you're going to have to explain some of these details in person, Clint.”

“You're coming to New York?” Clint asks, because it's almost too much to hope for the sight of a familiar face from his childhood, right now.

“I'm in New York already, as it turns out,” Baba says, and Clint could swear the call's no longer staticky. “Would you mind giving me an address so I can come to you, love?”

“I'm at a hospital, it's on-base, it's... complicated, you can't come here,” Clint mutters, rubbing his eyes.

“You're not hurt, are you?” she asks sharply, and he shakes his head until he realizes that she can't see it.

“No, nothing like that, it's my, uh. My boyfriend,” he mumbles, not sure if that's something he ever told her about. “It's... yeah, it's complicated. I mean, he's alive, but he won't...” Clint's throat closes, and Baba sighs a little.

“It's alright, love. I'll meet you where you're comfortable, just give me a time and a place and I'll be there. Alright?”

“Does tomorrow work?” he asks, and he can imagine the small frown she would get when he or Barney would get into trouble.

“Tomorrow morning,” she tells him, and he doesn't know why he thinks she'll be up for traveling when he's pretty sure she's older than dirt. “We'll meet for breakfast and you can tell me all that ails you.”

He doesn't know why that makes him feel better, but it does.

He tells Natasha, later, that he's going to see someone and talk about what happened. She's visibly impressed, and reads out loud to him, embellishing the parts he doesn't like with details she makes up as she goes.

She makes him leave again to shower and get dressed before he sees Baba, and tells him that Maria will be coming by and that they'll sit with Phil all day, so that he doesn't have to rush back. He thinks he might end up doing that anyway, but he can give them a few hours away from him if that's what they want.

When he finally sees Baba, she's still old but not really older, and she's still taller than he is and her hug is careful. When they sit down at the diner, she orders a mug of tea and sweetens it until it's practically undrinkable. She sips it as he tells an abbreviated version of the story, omitting classified details as best he can. Loki came from somewhere else, without warning, and had a spear with him that took Clint's mind away. Clint helped Loki find the tools he needed to get that horrible army into the skies over New York, and Clint helped Loki kill his friends and coworkers to do it. And then Clint got better, enough to fight Loki and the army he brought, and Loki was taken home by his older brother. And nothing mattered for weeks, because Clint helped Loki and Loki killed his boyfriend, only now it turns out his boyfriend's still alive, he just won't wake up. Baba makes it through the mug of tea, and gets a refill, and the whole time says nothing and merely holds one of Clint's hands.

When he is done, she gently places the mug of tea down on the table.

“I'm going to tell you a story now,” she says, and he's always loved her stories, half made-up and half tragic life experience, but he's not sure how that's going to help.

“I had seven daughters,” she tells him, and this is the beginning of a story she's told him before, but he listens anyway. “Of the seven, four still live.” He nods, although last time it was five. “Two of my daughters had daughters. Two of my daughters had twins. Two of my daughters had sons. And one of my daughters had none.”

She stirs her tea, and it's quiet in the diner, but no one comes to bother them, so he doesn't mind.

“This story concerns one of my granddaughters. She was a good girl, a hard worker, who never gave her mother grief. She had no other siblings, and she was very independent. She was like you,” Baba says, looking up at Clint. “She was strong and intelligent and good, and she had a sass on her something fierce. And one day my dear girl fell in love with a boy.”

“He wasn't the best boy, maybe. He was silly and skinny and knew nothing of the world, but he loved her and built his entire world around her.” Baba closes her eyes, still holding Clint's hand. “They married and they had children, and he became the first son of my heart. One day, something terrible happened. The house they lived in burned to the ground, and was nothing but an ashen wreck when he came home from work. He fled from me then, because he could not stand to live in a world that did not have his family in it, and I never saw him again.”

“I was ready to bury the remains of my beloved dead,” Baba says, looking directly at Clint. “And do you know what I found?”

“Not bodies,” Clint says, because he knows this story well.

“I hoped, with all my heart, that I would find them one day,” she agrees. “That they had escaped and had run to safety and become lost along the way. Every rumor I heard of children alone, I chased down. I never found them, of course.” She smiles sadly, looking away. “But something else happened while I was searching for the family I lost.”

“I found children who were alone in the world. And once I found them, I could not leave them. Some I brought back to their families. Some, like you, I kept closer, until they became adults and could care for themselves.” Clint gives her a watery smile at that, because it's a little different from the one she told him as a kid, but it still works.

“You have been exposed to a wider world,” Baba says, sipping her tea. “As such, I think it's alright now, to tell you this. Before, I wouldn't have thought you'd believe me.”

“Yeah?” Clint asks, and she sighs.

“The name of the boy who loved my granddaughter was Loki,” she tells him, “and I do not believe in coincidence.”

“Baba,” Clint says, shaking his head a little. He's kind of disappointed, actually. “It isn't going to- trust me. He's an alien, from another planet, literally. It's not going to be the same guy.”

“Clint,” Baba says sweetly. “Have you ever trusted me in your life?”

She lets him consider this. He knows there are times when he would have said no, but she's the last person alive who saw him as a child, and she is the only person from his past who knows what he was like before SHIELD, and she's the first person he told when he started building a new family for himself here. He does trust her.

“Loki,” she says, “was always a pale boy, with black hair and green eyes.”

Clint looks down at the table, fists clenched against his knees. He doesn't want to hear this. He doesn't want to reconcile the monster who used him with the childhood story of a doting father and husband.

“The kids,” Clint says softly. “Three of them- two boys and a girl. The boys were twins.”

Baba is silent, and Clint doesn't look up at her.

“He didn't mention the names of the boys, but when I told him about Natasha, he said... he said maybe she would have things to teach the daughter. Hela.”

“The boys are named Jormundgandr and Fenris,” Baba whispers. “Hela is the youngest.”

“You said they died back in the Old Country,” Clint says, after a moment. “But he talked about them like they were still alive. Like he was going to bring them here to live, after he conquered the planet.”

Baba inhales sharply, and when Clint looks at her, her face is covered with one hand, her knuckles a paler brown than the rest of her hand.

“And you say Thor took him back to Asgard?” she asks, and Clint know he didn't tell her either of those two names.

“Clint,” Baba says, leaning back a little. “Has Loki been brought to justice on Earth?”

“No,” he says, after a minute or two. “How could he? We don't have anywhere that could hold him for a trial.”

“Oh, believe me,” she says, eyes narrowed. “ _I can hold him_.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“So you are the commander I've heard so much about,” Baba says first, and Fury narrows his eye a little at Clint, who shrugs.

“How can I help you, Ma'am?” Fury asks stiffly, and Baba smiles widely at him.

“Choose a delegation, for starters. A human who has been personally wronged by Loki, a human who has had property destroyed or damaged by Loki, and a representative of the laws of Earth. I will take this delegation to Asgard, we will make our case for the removal of Loki from that realm, and we will bring him to justice here.”

“No, no, and no,” Fury says flatly, leaning back in his chair. “Why the hell would I agree to do any of that?”

“Because your people sent a nuke into the portal,” Baba says, folding her hands before her, “and if what Loki told Clint while he was enthralled is correct, Loki's wife and children were somewhere on the other side of that portal.”

Fury is silent, and Baba smiles, showing a mouth full of long, pointed teeth.

“And did I mention that Loki is my son-in-law?”


	3. Frigga in Asgard

She gives herself six weeks to mourn, to dwell on the child who had somehow become the silent, shadowed man she saw during the trial, to go into Loki’s old bedroom and hold his old things to her chest the way she had during the year he was missing. Frigga does not seek out her husband or Thor during this time- she, like her Loki, has always been more private, especially during times of hardship. Frigga has never wondered where he got it from, but now, for the first time in the centuries since she first held him close and inhaled the frosty, iron-rich smell of his fluffy black hair, she wonders if her example did him more harm than good.

 

On the first day of the seventh week she stops wondering such things. It helps no one to brood and wallow in past regrets, she tells herself. Instead, she goes to her older son, folding him to her chest for a swift hug.

 

“I have not seen your brother yet,” she confesses, kissing the top of Thor’s head. “I am afraid to.”

“Don’t be afraid, Mother,” Thor murmurs, looking up at her. “If you wish, I can go with you, and he won’t dare attempt to harm you if I am there.”

 

“That is not what I am afraid of,” Frigga says, maybe more sternly than she means to, but Thor merely shrugs and leans against her. 

 

“You didn’t see him,” he says flatly, and although he is grown, and growing more regal every day, he still clings to her hand, seemingly forgetting that her fingers are clutched in his. “He slaughtered the humans and tried to kill my friends, and he tried to kill me.”

 

“Oh, Thor,” Frigga sighs, because she is sad that her boy was hurt by her baby, but deep in the privacy of her mind, the imp of the perverse thinks that with what she taught Loki, he would have succeeded if he really tried. She will not pass judgement on the humans Loki is said to have slaughtered via his underlings and the Chitauri- not until Thor knows how many he killed with his own hands on Jotunheim.

 

A day passes, and she goes to her husband, and they stand arm in arm and gaze on the shining city of Asgard before she speaks.

 

“I’m worried,” she admits, and Odin presses his mouth against her forehead. “And I am ashamed. This sudden change, this drastic difference in Loki- I don’t understand how it could have happened this quickly.”

 

“You are not as close to him as you thought,” Odin suggests, drawing his fingertips against her back. “And there have been dark forces inside him since birth.”

 

“There are dark forces in all of us since the moment of birth, husband,” she reminds him, her eyes narrowing. “You forget how quickly your other son jumped at the chance to murder strangers in Jotunheim, not so long ago. You forget how quick he was to start a new war.”

 

“Loki was your favorite,” Odin says, looking over at her. “Your judgement is clouded in this matter.”

 

“He is our son,” Frigga says quietly, looking away. “And he deserves the same chance for redemption Thor was given.”

 

Odin pulls her close and says nothing, and she knows it is because he does not agree. After a moment, he speaks into her hair.

 

“He is too far gone,” he says. “If we had found him sooner, brought him back sooner-”

 

“There is something you’re not telling me,” Frigga says, and she feels him stiffen beside her.

 

“Frigga-” Odin starts, and she is already alarmed. “There was no way to know if it was true, but there is no reason to believe-”

 

“What?” she asks, turning on him with a touch of her true nature flickering around the edges of reality, the subtle growl of a lioness and a glimmer of gold in her eyes. Odin may be Allfather, but he could never hope to tame his goddess, and he knows so.

 

“The wife,” Odin says, taking a step back. “The children. The Chitauri were the ones who took them from-” She does not hear him over the sound of roaring. She turns to the window and with a thought is in her room again, locking herself away where her rage can destroy only her own things in the privacy of her own chambers.

 

She wants to destroy every last one of them. She wants to destroy everything, and she would do it if she thought it would make up for the single most grievous injury her child has endured. She knows it will not help, and the rage is half against that impotence.

 

On the third day she makes herself presentable and goes in search of her youngest boy. He is not in the first prison she finds, or the second, or the third, or the fourth. She finds a prison warded against sorcery in the darkest place, where traitors against the very fabric of reality go, and she seethes as she goes deeper into the darkness.

 

She stops when she hears it- a ragged whimper, a chuckle cut short, and a soft, barely audible whisper, “I love you too, Boda.”

 

She stays outside the door for a long time, afraid of what she will see, until she shames herself into opening the door and casting a soft glow about the room.

 

The chains are taut and he is curled against himself, his face turned away from her. The chains clatter faintly, and she knows he is trembling.

 

“Loki,” Frigga says softly, unsure if she will make things awful by approaching. “Loki, my son. Look to me.”

 

“It’s Mother,” he says quietly to himself. “It’s only Mother.”

 

“Yes,” Frigga says, moving forward and crouching down to his level, a few feet away. “Can you look at me, dear? I would see your face.”

 

He shakes his head and a strangled laugh escapes his throat. 

 

“Loki,” she says, and he shifts until his knees are flush against his chest and his feet are tucked under himself. “What am I to do, Loki?”

 

“They,” he says, his voice shattering. “In fire. Twice. My babies.” He finally looks up at her, eyes bloodshot, mouth in a grim line. “Thor interfered. I could have… I could have saved them. I could have had my babies. Your son stopped me. Now they are-” 

 

He cuts himself off, eyes glazing over as he tilts his head to one side, listening to a voice unheard. Frigga inhales deeply, the knot in her throat thick and sharp as ground glass.

 

“I didn’t know,” she says, and he looks quickly at her, teeth bared in a bloody snarl.

 

“You did. All-seeing. You all knew what they did.” The animalistic grimace curdles into a violent grin, and a hysterical giggle bubbles out of him. “I should have killed your son. Mine might have lived if I had. I should have killed him, but they… they loved Thor so-” 

 

Frigga reaches for his arm and he howls at her until she retreats.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

 

She engineers a jewel of a cell- pristine and bright where the other was dank and dark, open and airy and completely capable of holding him. Frigga remembers how she felt, fleeing from her mad child, and strengthens the cell until it is strong enough to withstand the efforts of herself and Loki in tandem. 

 

She moves him into it herself, lays out clothing and books and furniture she’s had made specially for him. He is silent and sullen, but when she takes his hand he squeezes hers, briefly, before slinking away. 

 

Frigga is there when the cell shuts and he is on the other side. She is on the wrong side, she thinks. She should be in there with him.

 

Instead she sits down in a chair, facing the floor-to-ceiling barrier between them, and starts talking. She tells him the story of his first steps, of the war against Surtur and the fire giants that lasted through her own childhood and ended with the conquest of Vanaheim. She tells him about the Vanir and their royal family, in an age when Asgard could barely protect herself, much less protect her allies. 

 

She tells him of a hundred battles that warped and twisted the prince son of Bestla and Bor, until all that mattered was bringing his men home, until all that mattered was the prosperity of Asgard, until all that mattered was that he knew best. She tells him of a few short years of peace, before a second war began. 

 

“We were a race of engineers and sorcerors,” she says once, smiling fondly at the distant memory. “Before Surtur, before the war that we simply weren’t prepared for, the war our engineers and sorcerors nearly lost.”

 

It is over six thousand years since the beginning of the first real war, and they have not been at peace for any meaningful amount of time since. She does not tell him that before the wars began, Loki was the height of an ideal. She does not tell him that the Asgard of her generation grew to hate that ideal because of the loss and naivete it represented to him, and that it wasn’t his fault, and that it wasn’t meant to be that way, it wasn’t meant to last this long.

 

Every day, Frigga sits and speaks. Sometimes his cell is neat and orderly, and he is on his bed or on a chair or nestled in the corner where his cell wall meets the window where she likes to sit. Sometimes the cell is torn apart and he is disheveled and curls up with his back to her, sobbing or growling into the wall, or his hands, or with his fists tangled in his hair.

 

Once he puts his hands against his chest and stares blankly at her and tells her that Jormundgandr was like her, that Fenris was like Thor, that Hela was his baby and that he had nightmares about watching her die, that the truth was worse, so much worse than he imagined over the centuries.

 

Once she goes to Odin, after she talks to Loki until her voice gives out, and she demands an explanation from her husband. She knows he knows more than he’s told her, and the fact that he refuses to say more than he already has is damning. She has loved him since before Midgard discovered the written word, but oh she hates him sometimes, too. 

 

He goes into a brief, planned Odinsleep, and she is glad to be away from him for a few days. She does not attempt to pass regency on to Thor in this time, not after what happened when she forced it onto Loki.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

 

“You must visit your brother,” Frigga says to Thor, a hand in his hair. “I am begging you to visit him.”

 

“Mother,” Thor says, looking up at her. “You cannot ask me to forgive him for crimes he committed against others, because it is theirs to forgive. But neither can I condone them.”

 

“I’m not asking you to condone his crimes,” Frigga says, her hand moving to his shoulder. “But I am asking you, as your mother, to seek understanding. There are things you do not know about what transpired when he was in the hands of the Chitauri.”

 

“We don’t-” he begins, and Frigga is too used to letting her voice carry on for hours, with her other child.

 

“They had Angrboda and his children,” she says, and Thor stops, uncomprehending. “Your father has confirmed it to me. They plucked him from the void and told him he could have his family again.”

 

Frigga sees his eyes widen and darken, just before she hears the thunder. Thor loves Loki, she knows, and she also knows he loved Loki’s children. She knows that Thor couldn’t stop himself from retelling his stories of their cunning and beauty when he came home from his visit with the family. She sees Thor put the facts in place- Loki’s desperation, their battle, and Loki’s breakdown, after he learned what happened. She sees his mind turn and she sees the moment when he realizes the extent of what he would have done, what he would have done differently, if he’d only known.

 

“Why didn’t he say anything?” Thor whispers, horrified. “I could have helped him- I would have killed every last one of them, we could have, together, to bring them back-”

 

“Talk to him,” Frigga says quietly. “He needs to know you would have brought them home to him.”

 

“I will,” Thor says hesitantly. “If… only to pass along my condolences. They deserved better.”

 

“Then come,” she says, standing. “At once.”

 

It is too late, though. They are passing through the hallways when word comes of an unheard-of delegation- the Exiled Queen of Vanaheim, and a motley entourage. She must greet them with Thor, and they go to the grand hall together, and the moment Thor steps foot in the room she sees his eyes light up.

 

Three of his battle brothers from the conflict against the Chitauri are here- from Heimdall’s recounting and Thor’s tales she recognizes them, Director Fury and Stark, the Man of Iron, and she takes just a moment more to deduce that shadow-eyed man between them must be Barton, and between Thor and Heimdall’s stories and Loki’s stony silence she thinks he must be one among them who Loki most grievously injured.

 

She gives them only the briefest of courtesies, as the Exiled Queen steps forward.

 

“Lady Frigga,” Baba Yaga says, looking down at her. Her antlers have been cut off and filed down, and it hurts Frigga a little to see it, that the Queen’s crowning beauty is gone. 

 

“Welcome,” Frigga says, glancing aside to Thor, to the hand clenching and unclenching at his side. “To what do we owe this honor?”

 

“I am here for justice,” the giantess says briskly. “I am here for Loki, called Odinson, with regards to the crimes committed by him against my chosen home and my chosen children.”

 

Frigga feels her heart stop, and Baba Yaga must see something on her face, before the giantess’s brilliant eyes soften and she tilts her head slightly.

 

“You are acting ruler, are you not?”

 

“I am,” Frigga says stiffly, and Baba nods.

 

“I would beg a private audience before I am taken to see him,” she says quietly, and Frigga nods.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

 

It is silent for a long time, in a small sheltered room off the main throne room. 

 

“I love him like a son,” Baba says, looking over at Frigga. “He married my granddaughter and fathered her children, and he did the best he knew how to do for them. I loved him then, and I love him still.”

 

“I never-” Frigga clears her throat. “I never had the courage to go to him, on Midgard. I wanted so badly to meet Angrboda, and to hold their children, but I… I was afraid that he wouldn’t need me, and I was too vain to be at peace with the idea.”

 

“He didn’t need you,” Baba says shortly. “He had me. But he wanted you, and you never came.”

 

“He came back to me a stranger,” Frigga says quietly, looking over at Baba. “Seven years I failed him. Ten centuries he mourned. Ten centuries he tore at himself and refused meals and wandered. I have sat beside him in illness and injury, and healed what wounds I could reach. Where were _you_?”

 

They stand like that, tensed for battle, before they both realize what they are doing and break into soft, strength-sapping chuckles.

 

“It’s nice to know that we Midgardians are not the only ones who play the blame game,” Baba says drily. 

 

“I never guessed,” Frigga says, wiping her eyes. “Although I should have. Midgard’s giants are all immigrants, and Angrboda was such a common Vanir name during the Jotun war.”

 

“All named after the infant princess, no doubt,” Baba grins. “Boda never knew, herself. She guessed we may have been nobility once, but we never…” Baba’s smile fades. “We never thought she needed to know. We were fools about our children, in those days. We thought it would be too painful to know the truth, to hear of a home that would never again exist. Now there are almost none left who remember.”

 

“I was the same fool,” Frigga admits bitterly. “I intended to tell him, one day, and then when he ran I thought that telling him would only drive him away further. And when he came home broken, I thought the truth would destroy him.”

 

“Loki is half jotnar,” Baba says flatly. “I have known this since Hela was wee, although I suspected it before. Did it never even occur to you that he would have discovered eventually, if he had ever tried to have children with an Asgardian? What if he had remarried and tried to start a new family, and 

didn’t understand why he couldn’t father any more?”

 

“Loki never let Angrboda go,” Frigga says quietly. “There was no one else. There was never anyone else.” 

 

Baba’s eyes close, and Frigga can feel the physical weight of her grief.

 

“It is lucky, then,” she says, her voice drawn tight, “that my children were giants, that Boda was biologically compatible. It is lucky that you never had to face your lie.”

 

“He discovered the truth only recently,” Frigga says. “And when he discovered Laufey’s blood ran in his veins, he tricked Laufey into coming here and slaughtered him, before trying to destroy Jotunheim with our Bifrost gate.”

 

“Laufey,” Baba repeats, drawing her eyebrows together. “Laufey, king of Jotunheim?”

 

“The same,” Frigga says, blinking. 

 

“I’m going to refrain from questioning further,” Baba says, shaking her head. “I know how the boy I knew would have reacted to such news. That is not what the Loki I knew would have done.”

 

“He’s changed,” Frigga says defensively. “That is what happens when time passes, Lady Baba.”

 

“So it is, Lady Frigga,” Baba retorts. “Enough of this, nothing can be done about it now. We have come to bring him to justice in Midgard.”

 

“I cannot deny you this right,” Frigga says sharply. “As Queen and acting ruler, I cannot. As his mother I admit that I do not want to see him go.”

 

“He ran from you,” Baba snaps. “He was stolen from me. As his mother I do not see how you get to have a say in this.”

 

“Is it justice you seek, or something else?” Frigga demands.

 

“What right have you to question me?” Baba asks, eyes ablaze. “Your armies chose my realm to wage their battles, and my people paid the price. My people bled and scattered and are memories on the wind now, and you dare question my right to seek justice in the land my survivors have found? Do you even know or understand what happened, what my people are? The sheer number of Midgardians now who carry the blood of Vanaheim and don’t even know that it ever even existed, because entire generations were wiped out due to Asgard’s folly?”

 

“I’m begging you not to kill him,” Frigga whispers, deflating. Baba frowns, pressing her lips together.

“Is it true,” she says flatly. “Boda and the children. Is it true?”

 

“Yes,” Frigga says, and tears finally spill over her face. “The Chitauri had them. The Chitauri used them. And they-”

 

“I can promise that he will not be killed,” Baba says quietly. “I cannot promise anything else. Lady Frigga, I need to see him.”

 

“Yes,” Frigga says, drying her face. “I believe you do.”


	4. Angrboda in the Dark 2

There is a rumble, and the lights go out, not just in their dim cell, but in the entire of this hateful prison. The crackle of energy- faint and ever-present, holding the bars of their cell in place- is only noticed once it is gone.

The darkness of night is never so blinding, she thinks. It is not so long ago that she and Loki together sat under a moonless sky and traced Yggdrasil's milky path with their fingertips, Loki joking shamelessly that he could see his house from here. She remembers seven years of midnights, of even the darkest hours, and the silver of Loki's skin under starlight. She remembers that first night, a starved and half-feral teenager scrambling to make himself useful to a stranger, and the lurching horror when she thought she saw the glimmer of ice on his cheekbones, and the only thing stopping her from assuming the boy dead the muffled snore he gave before rolling over in a fur she lent him.

Angrboda does not think she will be given that gift again, of thinking Loki dead only to be proven wrong.

First and foremost, the children set to shrieking the minute the lights go out. It's more of startled fear than true terror, and more worrying is that Fenris chokes it back into a pained whimper, and that itself serves only to infuriate Boda further. She walks to where the rough,

“Hush now,” she commands. “Ready yourselves, my lovies. I'm going to show you what Mama used to do for a living before she went to live in the forest where she met Daddy. Anyone want to guess?”

“Farming,” Fenris suggests softly.

“Fishing,” Jormundgandr states, just as softly.

“Fights!” Hela chirps, sweet and intuitive and giggling like her father when he thinks he's slipped a good pun into the conversation.

“Very close, my sweet girl,” Boda says, with a chuckle that could make a king kneel. “But we would have to find someone in order to show you. Let us start looking.”

Their progress was extremely difficult. The air tastes strangely stale, as though it hasn't been breathed in an eon.

“Why is it smelly?” Hela asks, and the boys make a few shuffling noises. Angrboda's got three pairs of little hands latched onto her back, and she freezes immediately when she feels one let go.

“Hey-” she starts.

“I'm going to change,” Jori says quietly. “Can I be on your shoulder, Mama?” Angrboda relaxes fractionally.

“Yes, dear,” she exhales. “Just until I tell you to be with your brother and sister, though.”

Within a minute she feels the serpent-shape of her son slither quickly up her back and drape over her shoulders. Boda reaches blindly until she has a hand on each of the other two before they start walking again.

She does not want to give voice to her suspicions. Loki is- Loki was erratic, these past days. Anyone could see it.

But it did not sound like the fancy of a madman, when he told her, _it's been years_. It did not feel like hours passing when she saw him throw what little he had into a proud and haughty walk in the morning and come back a broken shell of himself in the evening. It did not feel like a matter of days between Fenris's ragged whisper, _they hurt me and they hurt Daddy and I saw_ , and the dazed, boneless wretch in her husband's skin, smiling through bloody teeth at her and babbling nonsense.

_I've been so good for you, Boda. I can do it._

Angrboda thinks the hallways smell like a ruin. Angrboda thinks the hallways smell like a tomb, long since emptied of life or even the stench of death.

Angrboda thinks that when she finds out how many years were stolen from her family, she will rip the one responsible limb from limb. The only question is how many?

And perhaps, every time she thinks of her husband and the way he barely recognized her, their children... it is not in question that it will be a slow death for whoever did this to her, but rather _how slow_.

She thinks she can make it very slow indeed.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Just a routine check, but her sister does so hate to devote energy to such a mundane task, and their father would doubtless be pleased with Nebula to see a job well done. He is also unlikely to really ask if Nebula did it, but since she'd like to do something nice for her sister Gamora is dead set against doing anything but her best.

The prison had been little-used for most of an age, she knows, and it had been in the hands of Thanos' Mouthpiece, and given to the Chitauri mobs. The failure of the invasion force was.... spectacular, from what Nebula tells her of their father's reaction.

She is just going to check if there are any surviving prisoners in any of the time jars, and, if necessary, crack open the seals to see if the time jars are salvagable. They are valuable enough in and of themselves, and useful for keeping hostages out of the way with very little need for actual resources.

The prison- set into an asteroid, far from the nearest planet- hasn't had a new prisoner in over a thousand years, though. Gamora reckons that the worst thing she's going to run across here is a mess. She forces the entrance open and the light of the sun is almost gray in the dark of the place. She lights up- a small orb that rests on the ground, nothing fancy- and the shadows that spring up bear no resemblance to anything from the world Gamora imagines when she dreams of home.

Her cybernetics almost don't hear it- _stay here stay quiet until I come back_ \- but it's just there on the edge of conscious thought, and the fast-approaching footsteps are warning enough.

Gamora's fist flies out and the hand that catches it is big enough to envelop her's entirely. Gamora changes tactics immediately. Her opponent has size and strength on her, but Gamora's swift and agile and in fighting form, and the huge female fighting her now is already panting raggedly, with a tangled mane that looks to be a washed-out dirty white in the weak light of the little orb.

That is fine- if anything, Gamora's just glad that this isn't going to be the boring little assignment she'd thought it would be- and their fight quickly devolves into little more than a brawl. The one she's fighting has had training- good training, maybe it was as good as Gamora's once, but Gamora's opponent is desperately out of shape and is clearly putting some measure of conscious thought into her movements, as if she hasn't done this in a long time, in years.

Still, it's a near thing- Gamora practically dances out of the way as a brown fist leaves a dent in stone, and catches a glancing blow on her shoulder that feels like being hit by a small meteor. She has a blade to the giant woman's throat the instant she feels fingers close on her own, a momentary stalemate.

Gamora grins fiercely, because this was a good fight, but all she has to do is twitch her fingers, and all the giant woman has to do is squeeze down hard and for long enough that her cybernetics can't compensate for the loss of oxygen, and one of these things is easier than the other.

“ _Mama_!” a very, very small voice shrieks, and silver-blue eyes widen, in terror for the first and only time. “Mama _no_!”

“No,” the giant woman whispers, the small movement enough to create a tiny cut to let a trickle of blood start moving across her skin, and Gamora stares at her for a second more, before drawing the hand holding the knife away and dropping it on the floor.

“No,” she agrees softly. The woman looks tortured for a moment, before throwing Gamora back. It does no real harm, and gives the woman a chance to scoop up the knife with a hand that is shaking terribly.

“Stay back, Zen Whobarian,” she says, breathing hard. “What planet am I on?”

“I'm impressed,” Gamora says wryly. “Not many people recognize-”

“What planet am I on?” the woman all but roars, and Gamora considers this, considers the small noises of fear hidden in one of the shadows.

“Not a planet.” Gamora watches her carefully. “Asteroid field, actually. Nearest star is Kymel, to be precise.” The woman breathes through her nose, looking surprisingly relieved.

“That's.... that's not the worst news I could have had,” she says, which is a revelation. There's nothing inhabited around here whatsoever. She must catch someone on Gamora's face, because her eyes immediately narrow. “What?”

“Nothing, I just-” Gamora pauses, looking at the woman, really looking. “You... you weren't a prisoner here, were you?”

Because the last time a prisoner was brought here was over a thousand years ago, sealed away in the time jars, locked out of the time stream with no way of accessing the rest of the world.

Gamora knows it's going to be very, very bad, when the woman's jaw tightens and she gives Gamora an assessing look.

“You can't be serious,” she says, after a few moments. “This is, in fact, a prison, is it not? And, not to put too fine a point on it...” The knife twirled, but only a little. “It's been abandoned for years. Nothing for a family here. No reason for anyone to be here, is there?”

She steps closer, and Gamora doesn't step back.

“Only one that comes to mind is that we were, in fact, prisoners here,” the woman says, very quietly. It occurs to Gamora that the fight, despite everything, was perhaps a little close, and now this woman knows that Gamora is aware of her children, and now she is _armed_. “Just out of curiosity, how long has this facility been abandoned?”

“It wasn't abandoned until recently,” Gamora says, distinctly feeling uncomfortable with the amount of looming this woman is doing. “Two months ago, maybe. Before that, though, it was... not used very often.”

“You seem to be a bright young lady with a beautiful future ahead of you,” the woman says gravely, and Gamora almost wants to bark out a laugh at how wrong she is, but Gamora also suspects that wouldn't end well for her. “My name is Angrboda. Those little mewling treasures over there are my children. My husband was also here, at some point. Now, Miss, if you don't mind, I'd like to know two things. One is your name.”

“Gamora,” she says, because there's nothing else for it.

“Thank you, Gamora,” Angrboda says gently. “Now we're going to speak very quietly, in case I don't like the answer to my second question. Understood?”

“Yes,” Gamora sighs. “Understood.”

“How long ago were we brought here?”

Something tells Gamora that Angrboda really, really, really won't like the answer to that.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

It is not disobedience, Gamora thinks later. She was told to see if any of the time jars are still functioning and to remove any remaining prisoners. None of the time jars are still functioning.

And she certainly removed Angrboda and the three little ones. She removed them to her personal ship, the children sleeping fitfully, Angrboda in a state of stiff, wide-eyed shock. She removed them to a space station where she, coincidentally enough, needed to refuel, anyway.

“I can't take you any further,” she'd said, and Angrboda had nodded tightly.

“I understand I have a great deal of catching up to do. But it's not such a large galaxy that I won't find my way back to Midgard,” she had replied, before catching herself. “Terra, I should say.”

“Keep the knife,” Gamora had told her, and for a moment the haunted look on Angrboda's eyes had lifted, just a little.

“I was planning on it,” she'd said, and almost smiled. “The one who- your father, girl. If it ever...” She had hesitated, and Gamora had waited. “If you ever get the chance, get away. Get away and go so far he cannot find you again.”

“Goodbye,” Gamora had said.

That was days ago. Gamora thinks it was not disobedience. She technically did as she was asked.

And it was Nebula's job, besides.

Still...

Still.

The strange Terran's words were just that, only words, and Gamora hadn't thought it possible to even dream of escape, of... leaving all this. Leaving everyone. Leaving Thanos.

Angrboda had spoken like someone with experience with that kind of thing, though. That certainly had to count for something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. This is much better than what I originally had planned, though, trust me.


End file.
